Scenario: Conflicting Priorities

As an action learning coach, how would you handle the following situation:

Part way through the session, one of the members mentioned a meeting they have that will require them to leave early. Several other participants mention they need to go to the same meeting, leaving only 2 participants for the session.

Comments (9)

I woud ask the team when they’d like to continue the discussion. I’d also ask a learning question: what is the impact of having the sessions interrupted this way? How can we ensure that we continue to accomplish what we planned in each session?

I would say ” since team members have other priorities, how can we still make our session worthwhile?” There should be some suggestions from the team about this situation. Then, I would also ask “how long can all the team members stay in the session?” As an AL coach, I would work based on those timeframe allowed instead of working with 2 participants left. But at the end of the session, I would ask them to reflect about this session to enhance their learning by asking questions such as What is working? What is not? And how can we make it better next time? How can this situation reflect about our problem or company?

It is important to acknowledge the diruption and ask questions to the group to let them guide the discussion of the impact of the shift in members, as they are in control of their own learning.
1. Give them the observation
2. What’s the impact of this happening?
3. How should we handle it?
“We have members of the group who will need to leave early, what are some options we have? What are the limitations if they are not here for the remainder of the session? Is there any way we can use this time valuably without their perspective?”

It is also key to note that an ideal group size for action learning is 4-8 people, as less than 4 is not enough diversity and more than 8 subgroups are developed.

As the Action Learning Coach, I would ask the team member with the SID intervention model. As such I would ask the team member with S-Situation: Team, as several team members have to leave the session early and remain only 2 persons in the session, when will we continue the session? I-Impact: What will happen if next session some of our team members have to leave early again. D-Do: How do we prevent this situation to be happening again?

I would ask the group how they would like to deal with the situation of people leaving before the end of the session? What are the impacts to the session? If there are alternatives to proceed with a minimum of 04 people? If it does not exist, I would interrupt the session by asking them to reflect on it and ask the group to indicate a new date.

I would acknowledge the problem by asking the group two questions:
i) What is the possible impact of disruptions on current and future learning opportunities and
ii)If they choose to postpone the session, when would be a mutually convenient time to continue the action learning intervention

I would ask the group what do they propose in this situation? What are their propositions to manage that? Is it really important that they will attend this meeting? If so – what are we going to do with the problem we started to solve? How can we do to collect all the ideas we will create at this session and when we will be continuing?

I would also ask what kind of rule do we need in that kind of situations for the future?

I would intervene as this presents a learning opportunity for the group. I would ask the group to reflect on the conflicting priorities of the participants. I would ask the question ” What is the impact on the group when participants have conflicting priorities “? What is the impact on the action steps and the learning when there are only 2 members participating ? How would the group like to handle the situation ?
The objective is that the group takes ownership of the process and the learning .

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